


And All is Ash in the End

by Torchiclove



Series: Cr Rarepair Week 2017 [4]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Bitter Post-Death Scanlan, Canon Divergence, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 04:16:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12027930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Torchiclove/pseuds/Torchiclove
Summary: Scanlan burns one letter, and he is not satisfied until they all are ash.Rarepair week day five: angst





	And All is Ash in the End

Scanlan simmered quietly, like he always did, but he felt a shift in himself when Vax picked him up by his scruff and gave him that scrap of paper. He smiled as his friends made plans to send him to the slaughter, one way or another. Vax wanted to fight that dragon and send Scanlan to his death bed, for good this time, and he couldn’t even say a kind word to a friend who’d laid down their life for his mistakes.

He should’ve known, all along, how much of a fool the half-elf had played him for. Scanlan the silly bard, always singing merry songs about debauchery and fun, always found in the nearest house of flesh. Always a spell in his pocket and a rhyme on his lips, a font of advice ready and willing to pull Vax out of his own muck.

They met in the middle, once, in Whitestone, as Scanlan spiralled down and Vax clawed his way towards the surface, and it was strangely peaceful. It didn’t last, never lasted, could never last, but it was a nice thought. Scanlan thought they met in the middle once, in the City of Brass, as he rode the high of an awoken vestige and a slain fiend and Vax kissed him in just a brief moment where the background hum of Scanlan’s mind was wrenched forcefully to the forefront. 

It stayed there, uncomfortably, sitting and stewing, now unable to be ignored. The first taste of the drug, he thought with a chuckle, because it was an apt metaphor for what he was doing now. 

He packed brown, grainy suude into a tarnished brass flute. Some might say it was sacrilege, to do that with an artifact so valuable. Scanlan just saw it as poetry. 

A scrap of paper sat on the desk beside him, illuminated by the flicker of a candle. It said those three words that clawed at the back of his throat and pulsed in his angry blood. _You were right_ , it said in Vax’s hasty scrawl, his handwriting so telling of his personality. 

Just looking at it caused him to seethe, to close his eyes for just a moment and breath as another surge of unsaid words flooded his senses until it was too much. He put down his makeshift pipe, prepared for a day of death that was sure to come, and picked up the letter, if it could even be called that.

The satisfaction he wrought when he heard the beautiful sound of the paper being torn in two was almost enough to make up for his messy, bleeding heart. 

He burned it slowly, watching as the edge caught fire and curled in protest as the flames spread throughout, the ashes falling to the desk as the fire consumed the paper and left its message scattered to the wind. The other half went next, similarly left as a few forgotten cinders, soon to be blown away.

But Scanlan wasn’t satisfied with that. He thought for just the briefest second that he now understood the Cinder King’s affinity for fire, Raishan’s desire to have her disease burned out of her. That’s what he was doing: burning it out of him. If only he could just burn it out.

He pulled from his bag a stack of parchment, a stack of letters, some yellowed with age and some newer, all unsent and unseen. He thumbed through to pick the best one and, sentimental gnome that he was, picked the oldest. 

Things were simpler back then, when the world rested on the shoulders of loftier heroes, and the SHITs were just a blip on the map. Just a couple of fuck-ups in it for the money or the free fights.

Writing was catharsis, Scanlan often told himself as he wrote songs and limericks and poems, and in this case, letters. He had every intention of sending them when he wrote them, just never knew when, and he couldn’t help but laugh at his past self. _Vax’ildan, my love knows no bounds_ , and _How your elven beauty enchants me_. It was all physical back then. Scanlan was a different person.

He took the yellowed parchment that confessed his attraction and let the candle do its work, and felt his heart warm in the most uncomfortable sense.

The letters started off with Scanlan’s telltale over-the-top flirting, meant more to entertain than to charm but always succeeding in both. He knew exactly what he wanted back then. Vax would’ve been another lay, another play in the book, and over with. His hands washed of the half-elf forever, but that’s not how it happened.

Because Scanlan stuck around with the SHITs-turned-Vox-Machina far longer than he ever expected. His heart twisted in new and terrifying ways.

 _Vax’ildan, when I saw you there, bleeding and helpless, I realized that I didn’t know what I’d do if you were gone,_ his third letter, dated months after the first, read. It had not been a serious battle, not after what they’d seen now, but at the time? Seeing a party member slip into unconsciousness was the worst thing that could happen. They couldn’t begin to fathom a real, actual death.

The old feelings went up in flames. Creation is catharsis, the old Scanlan seemed to scream from the crumbling pages. The new Scanlan wanted only destruction.

After that was when they started to get really sappy. Scanlan bared his heart on the pages of hastily scrawled letters, at this point knowing no one else would ever read them. He waxed poetic about how he was inspired by love, and in the very next letter lamented about how it tortured him. No matter the content, each was consumed alike, until he got to the most recent letter.

Frighteningly recent. 

Written the night after he promised Kaylie he wouldn’t die, he made the same promise to his beautiful Vax’ildan. _So many of us have died now,_ he wrote, and it was almost funny looking back. _You and I, we’ll stay alive, and we’ll make it out of this, and then we’ll see what happens. I love you, Vax’ildan, in the core of me. I love you so much it fucking hurts._

The remnants of delusional, love-sick Scanlan Shorthalt, without ceremony, were gone. He swept his hand across the table of watched the ash scatter, watched himself and Vax scatter to the wind.

He could feel the flame in his chest, searing his heart, burning the sickness that was his love out of him. Scanlan felt empty and he felt free. 

He thought of what he’d say to Vax in the morning, of the bitter kisses he wanted to leave in his mouth, the taste of ash he wanted to fill his tongue. Scanlan Shorthalt could hate Vax’ildan all he wanted, but it always twisted back around into the same thing. 

Scanlan burned his letters, and nothing really changed at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Another shorter one. A lot of irrational thoughts Scanlan might've had after dying.


End file.
